> I think Dick's approach is a valiant attempt at a concordist
> interpretation of early Genesis, but I also consider such interpretations
> in general to be futile & unnecessary. Adam & Eve are theological figures
> who represent the first human beings, as part of the fact that in a broader
> sense they represent all humans. That doesn't mean that they are simply
> wax images that can be made to represent anything at all. 'adham means
> "human" and Eve is given her name because she is "the mother of all
> living." This makes it clear that they are representatives of all
> humanity, not simply some subset of humans.
>

This may also have been debated many times before, but
whereas Adam is supposed to mean "human," etc., there was
(and in some cases still is) a tendency for "groups" to see
themselves as somehow "more human" and more significant
the rest of the duffs on the planet. So if I were to
work more from Paul Seely's angle of using the sense
of the meaning at the time, how would that affect my
interpretation of the word "human" and "mother of all
living things"?

There was certainly the Jews and Gentiles thing just
as there was the Greeks and barbarians thing. Reading
between the lines, it seems like this view of a universal
humanity only _began_ to take seed sometime around the
period of the Persian empire. Hence, I would have the
impression that the humanity expressed by Ezekiel or Isaiah
was more universal and had grown with their deeper
understanding and appreciation of God. I wonder if
Romans 2:28-29 is something that could be understood
or appreciated at a the time of Moses.

The main problem I see with attributing Adam to "Israel"
is that Genesis 10 does describe a spread of nations
from the people in the ark. I don't take the "Ark" that
seriously, but the description does imply the _idea_ that
nations spread from an ancestral "source". It does not
include Sinetic, Altaic groups, etc., nor are Amerindians
mentioned, nevertheless the sense of the idea follows
the way language and culture spread throughout the world.
This aspect does somewhat support a broader concept of
humanity.

So then the crux of this point is, how did the author's of
Genesis 1 - 11 actually see the extent and universiality
of the word "human"? Moreover, isn't this view of what
is human more a reflection of how far a culture has grown
in its understanding of who God is?